Growing Tomatoes

The cocktail tomato corner in our backyard garden.

Tomatoes are very versatile.

You could cook it, grill it, make a sauce out of it, eat it fresh, freeze it and it would still taste wonderful.

And we all to those things, too.

Little IC could not pass by our cocktail tomato corner without plucking a ripe one and sticking it in her mouth. (She ignores the other tomato sortiments during her sorties.)

We have fresh tomatoes during breakfast. My husband loves to combine it with his bread and cream cheese.

We have fresh tomatoes during meal time. We use it as a topping for our green salad, in our sausage salad, as a lone side dish, in our sauce, in our grill, with fried rice.

We freeze most of them, too. There is more than enough and we wanted to save them fresh for winter, too. What we do is harvest them, rub them clean with a kitchen towel and place them inside a plastic bag then into the freezer.

I find tomatoes a bit sensitive. We planted most of them under the roof, to prevent them from being soaked by the rain. We don't have any greenhouse anymore, so we have to be extra vigilant with our tomatoes this time.

Then, as an amateur gardener, my husband who is a hobby gardener; pointed out to me the extra stalks that needed to be pruned so the rest of the tomatoes could flourish better. Well, I don't voluntarily do that, not unless my husband is with me so I could consult him first. I don't want to make a mistake and damage the whole plant! (To which my husband replied, learning by doing!!) He also pointed out to me that there are only selected tomato types that needed to be pruned.

And in watering the tomatoes, in which task the girls have already taken over, only the roots and not the whole plant.

The cocktail tomatoes, is crawling into a trellis near the kitchen. It's stable that way.

The other tomato plants are supported by a combination of wooden and metal stakes. As the tomatoes  grow, we anchor them by selecting the main stem and tying the individual branches to the stake with a soft cord. Tie the twine to the stake and loop it loosely around the plant. As it grows, we simply continue pruning and tying.

And we make sure that we harvest in time. We don't want an overly ripe tomato. I love my tomatoes crispy, my husband loves them meaty and IC just love all the smaller types. MC is unfortunately, not yet a tomato fan.